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Update On Permitless Concealed Carry In NC

May 3, 2023 by 1 Comment

The North Carolina House Judiciary 2 Committee held their hearing on HB 189 – NC Constitutional Carry Act today. The committee adopted a substitute which they often do and reported it favorably to the Rules Committee. The vote to advance the bill to Rules was 7 aye, 4 nay according to WGHP-TV Greensboro. The bill will be renamed “NC Permitless Carry”.

The House Rules Committee is scheduled to take up HB 189 tomorrow and a final vote is anticipated to come by Thursday, May 4th, which would meet the crossover deadline.

According to the WGHP report:

The bill was supported by gun rights advocacy groups, such as Grass Roots North Carolina and Gun Owners of America, represented by Andy Stevens, who said the bill would alleviate backlogs of some sheriffs who were slow to provide permits.

Paul Valone of Grass Roots North Carolina said the bill represented a “relatively modest bite at the apple.”

Among those speaking against the bill were the NC Council of Churches, NC Against Gun Violence, and the NC Sheriffs Association. The representative from the Sheriffs Association objected saying law enforcement would not know if the person they were approaching was legal to carry a concealed weapon. As with both the current law and the proposed law, anyone carrying concealed has the duty to inform if approached by law enforcement.

Grass Roots North Carolina also delivered over 1,500 signed petitions to Speaker Tim Moore’s office prior to the committee meeting. If you have not yet signed the petition, please do as that will increase the number that will be given to Sen. President Phil Berger.

Andy Stevens Photo

HB 189, in addition to allowing unlicensed carry, would reduce the permitted age to 18. It would also recognize training offered by US Concealed Carry Association. As I read Section 1.2 of the proposed law, the training requirement of the current law would be retained under permitless carry. The bill, however, makes no mention of providing proof of that training to law enforcement if questioned. It is reported that the retention of the training requirement was necessary to get permitless carry passed out of committee.

Another bill of relevance that passed out of the House Judiciary 2 Committee today was HB 691 – New Resident/Temporary Concealed Carry Permit. It would impact new North Carolina residents who have a current, unexpired carry permit from another state that is due to expire within 120 days of establishing residency. They would be granted a temporary permit so long as they had applied for a NC permit, paid the fee, had their fingerprints taken, and signed the mental health background check waiver. They would not be required to have taken a North Carolina training class before being granted the temporary permit. This permit expires when person gets their NCCHP or if the person does not provide proof of taking the North Carolina course within 120 days of getting the temporary permit.

HB 691 will go to the Rule Committee tomorrow along with HB 189.

UPDATE: You will note that the bill retains the training requirement. This so I understand came from the Speaker and was the compromise to have the bill move forward. It was either compromise to get something or wait another two years. It does negate the anti-gun lobby’s argument about “untrained” people being allowed to carry.

Additionally, the bill was not on the Rules Committee calendar when it was first published yesterday. However, checking the list as of this morning, both HB 189 and HB 691 are on their list of bills to be heard at 1:15pm today.

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There Is Camo And Then There Is Malagasy Police Camo

May 1, 2023 by 3 Comments

The police in Madagascar have rather unique camo. I can’t say that it lets them merge into their surroundings but it is kind of cool.

I could see wearing this to a Tiki party.

This was posted on camouflage subreddit of Reddit. The guy who posted the picture said he obtained it directly from a police store with the admonition not to wear it in public in Madagascar.

You can also see these female police officers wearing it.

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Former Enemies Come Together To Honor The Fallen

April 29, 2023 by

The Battle of Camden was a decisive win for Lord Corwallis in his southern campaign during the American Revolution. He only lost 68 men compared to almost 900 Americans killed or wounded. Last year, the remains of 13 soldiers – 12 American and 1 British – were found by archaeologists working on the battlefield. They were just recently reinterred in a joint ceremony featuring both soldiers from the US Army and a contingent from 2 Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland. The lone British soldier was thought be from the 71st Regiment of Foot, Fraser’s Highlanders.

The British military’s news service, Forces News, just did a video story on the find by the archaeologist and the ceremony to reinter the bodies with the honor and dignity that they deserve.

More on the archaeological dig by the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology (SCIAA), the University of South Carolina, the Richland County Coroner’s Office, and the SC Department of Natural Resources can be found in this story by The State.

It noted of these fallen who will finally be laid to rest with the honor and dignity that they deserve:

Suffering 900 casualties, the Americans fled in defeat. According to legend, some didn’t stop until they reached North Carolina. Their abandoned dead were thrown into communal graves, arms and legs intertwined, to lie in anonymity.

For more than two centuries, they did not rest peacefully. Wild hogs rooted through the shallow graves. The land was farmed and logged. Tractors drove over the graves, compressing dirt and clay and crushing bone that lay sometimes just inches below the surface.

The Post and Courier of Charleston gives an American perspective of the ceremonies in the following video:

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Help Pass Permitless Concealed Carry In NC

April 28, 2023 by 4 Comments

North Carolina has and has had permitless open carry since 1922. That is when the North Carolina Supreme Court in State v. Kerner said it was a constitutional violation to prohibit open carry. Now we are fighting to have what 27 other states have – unlicensed or permitless concealed carry.

Grass Roots North Carolina plans to deliver petitions demanding passage of permitless concealed carry to Speaker Tim Moore on Tuesday. Thursday, May 4th, is the last day for a bill to pass the House in order qualify for the crossover deadline. If the House does not pass HB 189 by then, permitless carry will be dead for the remainder of the next two years in the General Assembly.

GRNC also has an alert up with pre-written language with which to contact your State Representative. You can find it here.

I have embedded the petition below which has a QR code to lead you to where you will need to sign it. Frankly, I don’t think it matters if you live in North Carolina or not, we need numbers.

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Every Picture Tells A Story, Vol. 2, No. 3

April 25, 2023 by 6 Comments

Today at 2pm CDT, Gov. Jim Pillen (R-NE) will sign LB77 making Nebraska the 27th state to adopt unlicensed concealed carry. Gov. Pillen is fulfilling a campaign promise in which he said he would sign the bill if it was presented to him. He will be joined by Sen. Tom Brewer (R-43rd District) who was the primary sponsor of the bill along with other state senators. The signing ceremony will be streamed live on Nebraska Public Media.

Thanks to the efforts of Rob Vance, my long running series of Every Picture Tells A Story has the update which adds Nebraska.

Here are the statistics that accompany the graphic.

26.8%Non-compliant with 2nd Amendment per Bruen (CA,CT,DC,HI,MD,MA,NJ,NY,RI)
0.0%No Issue
0.0%May Issue goes away Post-Bruen
30.0%Shall Issue (CO,DE,IL,LA,MI,MN,NC,NM,NV,OR,PA,SC,VA,WA,WI)
43.2%Unlicensed concealed carry 

As I noted in a prior post, almost three-fourths of all Americans live in a state where a permit is not required or is shall-issue. If you wanted to do a real deep dive, you could expand the numbers a bit as some counties in California such as Sacramento are de facto shall-issue.

If North and South Carolina were to adopt unlicensed or permitless concealed carry, the percentage would definitely go above 75%. The South Carolina House has passed such a bill and it is now in the SC Senate. Meanwhile in North Carolina, Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-Beaufort,  Dare,  Hyde, and Pamlico) has introduced HB 189 – NC Constitutional Carry Act. It is now in the House Judiciary 2 Committee.

Of the remaining shall-issue states, it would appear that only Louisiana might pass a permitless carry law. The remaining states are entirely controlled by Democrats, have at least one house of their legislature controlled by Democrats, or have a Democrat as governor.

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“Get Your Kicks On Route 66”

April 25, 2023 by 4 Comments

I never realized just how many versions of this song existed until I went looking for a video to post. It was done by Nat King Cole, by the Rolling Stones, by Dr. Feelgood, by Diana Krall, by Chuck Berry, by Depeche Mode, and the list goes on and on.

Now I’ve driven on Route 66 in New Mexico, Arizona, and Missouri. I have seen the concrete adobe motel in Albuquerque and have had a concrete at Ted Drewes in St. Louis. The latter is just down the street from my sister-in-law who lives just off of Rt. 66.

I’m going with this version by Asleep at the Wheel because I like the group and I like Texas Swing.

As to why this song is special for me today, I’ll let you guess. Eleven years ago this resonated with me.

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Only Professional Chefs Should Be Allowed These Knives

April 22, 2023 by 2 Comments
Photo from Sabatier Knives

You know how the anti-gun lobby says only the police or military should have access to certain firearms such as the AR-15 or handguns with standard capacity magazines? Well, it seems the Brits are planning to go beyond firearms to include things like chef’s knives, machetes, and “zombie knives”. Zombie knives are those that look “evil” or have markings on them that suggest violence.

British Home Secretary Suella Braverman has issued a “consultation” which seeks to give police the power to seize knives found in the homes of suspects, ban other knives, and increase the penalty for selling, making, or importing “dangerous knives.” This is a predecessor to adopting new legislation.

From the Daily Mail:

Kitchen knives could be seized from the homes of suspected criminals under a proposed Home Office plan.

Police will be consulted by ministers to allow them extra powers to ‘seize, retain and destroy bladed articles’ kept in private, even if the knives are ‘not on the Home Office’s banned list of weapons’.

Certain knives such as push daggers, swords, and butterfly knives are already bannned.

The rationale supposedly is due to “knife-enabled crime”. British police has seen an increase in stabbings along with a 17% increase in “possession of article with a blade or point” crimes.

From The Telegraph:

Chris Philp, the policing minister, said: “Too often we hear from towns across England and Wales that another life has been lost to violence, often using large knives that have no legitimate use. 

“It is time that we move to ban these dangerous weapons, which is the process we are starting today. We are also consulting on giving the police more powers to seize knives.

So I guess professional chefs will now be required to keep their knives in locked cases and only farmers will be allowed to use tools like a machete. The average home gourmet cook will have to get by with unpointed (and probably dull) knives. Likewise, the home gardener who seeks to keep that bramble or hedge under control will need to use an electric string trimmer and not the “evil” and “dangerous” machete.

I wonder how soon before the Home Office goes after the quintessential British gardening tool called the Billhook like the double-edged one below from British gardening company Carters (established 1740)..

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NRA-ILA Picks Wrong Target

April 21, 2023 by 2 Comments

The NRA-ILA is now headed by what I consider their third string quarterback. First, Wayne and company forced Chris Cox out for supposed disloyalty. Then his replacement Jason Ouimet left when he saw the writing on the wall. Now Randy Kozuch, an almost 30-year veteran of the NRA, was appointed as Executive Director of ILA by the Board of Directors on Monday He had been the interim head prior to Monday.

Yesterday, the NRA-ILA posted a release that claimed credit for getting North Carolina’s pistol purchase permit repealed and blasting other 2A groups for taking credit for it.

However, some other 2A groups in the state have instead continued to focus on seeking credit for the legislative victory. At least one group has gone so far as to try claiming exclusive responsibility for the passage and veto override of SB41.

Not only do these laughable claims dismiss over a decade of legislative repeal efforts by NRA members, gun owners, and other 2A groups, but they also create an unnecessary distraction. This is a time when Second Amendment expansion opportunities in North Carolina are possible, including NRA’s push for constitutional carry. We would hope that all pro-gun groups share that same enthusiasm to collectively fight for pro-gun legislation in North Carolina. 

Now I don’t know if this was the work of Randy Kozuch as it reads more like something that Marion Hammer would put out. I do know that someone royally screwed up.

To paraphrase Jim Croce:

You don’t tug on superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off that old lone ranger
And you don’t mess around with Paul Valone of GRNC

It is bad enough to take credit for another organization’s hard work. The NRA has done that time and again. However, it goes beyond the pale when you then dump on an all-volunteer, highly effective, state-level gun rights organization for having the temerity to claim credit for their actual accomplishments.

As anyone who knows Paul Valone would expect, he is not taking this lying down. He issued a point by point response last night.

Gun Rights Supporters:
The failing NRA, in a desperate bid for relevance, recently made a veiled accusation against GRNC, claiming “…some other 2A groups in the state have instead continued to focus on seeking credit for the legislative victory. At least one group has gone so far as to try claiming exclusive responsibility for the passage and veto override of SB41.” Below are NRA claims, followed by the truth.

Myth: The NRA claims GRNC was the first group to claim credit for Senate Bill 41.

Truth: GRNC was not the one who first claimed credit, it was Fred Edgecomb, a past president of the NRA-affiliated NC Rifle & Pistol Assoc., who was heard to claim credit at a recent IDPA match. We merely responded by setting the record straight.

Myth: The NRA-ILA alert claimed that GRNC “dismiss[ed] over a decade of legislative repeal efforts by NRA members, gun owners, and other 2A groups.”

Truth: The first purchase permit repeal was negotiated by GRNC, Sen. Buck Newton, and the Republican-led NC Senate in 2013 and was included as part of HB 937, an omnibus bill which contained, among other things, restaurant carry. Because the Senate considerably strengthened the weak bill first passed by the NC House, it had to return to the House for a concurrence vote. Unfortunately, NRA-endorsed Governor Pat McCrory threatened to veto the bill if it contained the purchase permit repeal, causing the repeal to be stripped out in conference committee.

Next, in 2021, GRNC worked with Rep. Jay Adams to alter his bill, HB 398, by substituting language for a full purchase permit repeal. We also worked closely with then-NC Sheriffs Association President Dave Mahoney to get NCSA to endorse the repeal and got the bill passed by both chambers before Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed it.

This year, GRNC worked closely with Sens. Danny Britt, Warren Daniel, and Jim Perry to ensure that the SB 41 not only cleared both chambers, but did so without contaminating amendments. For the override vote, we hammered thousands of robocalls and automated text messages into the districts of Democrats who had voted for the bill.

Meanwhile, bill sponsors and other legislators I have asked reported no contact from the NRA lobbyist, DJ Spiker. The NRA was so utterly out of the loop that, at one point, it issued an alert which wrongly described the contents of a gun bill that had been changed in a previous committee meeting. In fact, in videos GRNC made this year of committee hearings on gun bills, you will see only GRNC testifying to the committees, not NRA and not NCRPA.

Finally, GRNC worked for nearly two decades to insert into the public consciousness the phrase “our Jim Crow-era purchase permit law” – a strategy we worked out after reading about the origins of the law in Dave Kopel’s book, ”The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies?”

Myth: That the NRA is “push[ing] for constitutional carry.”

Truth: North Carolina’s first permitless carry bill (then called “Vermont carry”) was introduced by Sen. Hugh Webster in 1997 as SB 810 at the behest of GRNC and GOA. We actually went as far as filing a discharge petition when Democrat Marc Basnight refused the bill a hearing. At around this time, we heard reports from gun rights groups in other states that NRA lobbyists were actively sabotaging permitless carry bills. This year, we are working closely with bill sponsor Rep. Keith Kidwell on HB 189, “NC Constitutional Carry Act.” We are unaware of any effort by the NRA on the bill. Frankly, it would be nice if the NRA did something on the bill, since the May 4 crossover deadline is fast approaching.

In closing, it’s bad enough that the NRA, consumed by its inner strife and reportedly declining membership, has been AWOL from the past two sessions of the General Assembly. Worse, however, is when the organization, facing legal challenges due to alleged corruption, siphons off resources from the group that is actually doing the heavy lifting.

Please help ensure that doesn’t happen by going to: grnc.org/join-grnc/contribute

With your help, all-volunteer Grass Roots North Carolina will continue its 29-year history of success.

Armatissimi e liberissimi,

 


F. Paul Valone
President, Grass Roots North Carolina
Executive Director, Rights Watch International
Radio host, Guns, Politics and Freedom
Author, Rules for ANTI-Radicals: A Practical Handbook for Defeating Leftism


Paul Valone is the honey badger of the gun rights community in North Carolina. While the NRA may still consider itself the 800 lb gorilla, “honey badger don’t care“.

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Guess Who Got Fooled Again

April 19, 2023 by

The British rock legends The Who have a song entitled, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. It contains the lyric, “We don’t get fooled again.” Unfortunately, it appears that no one in the NRA’s leadership is a Who fan or at least doesn’t remember that song. That is because they did get fooled again.

At last year’s Meeting of Members, Jason Selvig of the comedy duo The Good Liars trolled Wayne LaPierre on a resolution honoring him. He tried to get the members to chant “thoughts and prayers”.

This year, Selvig’s partner Davram Stiefler did the honors. He spoke on Jeff Knox’s second resolution that called for a vote of no confidence in Wayne LaPierre. It is playing on Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube where it has received hundreds of thousands views.

Jeff Knox realized Wayne was just trolled. He even suggested to NRA Secretary John Frazer that speakers be required to hold up their voting credentials before being allowed to speak. That is a quite reasonable suggestion that will probably get blown off given that it came from Jeff.

Selvig and Stiefler understand Alinsky’s Rule Number Five – “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.” While Wayne is worthy of ridicule, the work that the NRA does on training and the promotion of the Second Amendment is not.

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2023 NRA Meeting Of Members – Resolution 3 (Updated)

April 19, 2023 by 4 Comments

The third resolution presented at the 2023 NRA Meeting of Members generated the most comment. It was a resolution from Jeff Knox that expressed no confidence in Wayne LaPierre as the Executive Vice President.

After NRA Secretary John Frazer read the resolution, Charles Cotton asked for those for and against it to speak. Those speaking in favor of it were Jeff Knox, Rob Pincus, John Carr, and Michael Mc (missed the rest of his name.)

When it came to speaking against it, the Friends of Wayne on the Board fought one another to express their confidence in Wayne as well as to attack Jeff either directly or through innuendo. These included Tom King, Mark Robinson, David Keene, Joel Friendman, and Jay Printz. There were two others that spoke against it but one of those was a comedian similar to Jason Selvig in 2022.

Here is Jeff’s resolution which failed again in 1/3 aye, 2/3 nay vote.

Resolution of No Confidence in Wayne LaPierre

Submitted by Jeff Knox, Endowment Life Member, Arizona

April 15, 2023

Whereas the NRA has seen a dramatic decline in Annual Members over the past 4 years, with sources indicating a drop of close to 30%, and

Whereas the NRA has experienced a significant declines in revenue over the past 4 years, with sources indicating declines of almost 50%, and

Whereas, between the years 2015 and 2018, the unrestricted net assets of the NRA declined by over 60 million dollars, and

Whereas 2018 saw financial belt-tightening, and the total collapse of the NRA’s heavily promoted, and very expensive Carry Guard program, which had only been introduced a few years earlier, and

Whereas, the advent of the SARS COV 2 pandemic caused layoffs of some 400 NRA employees, along with announced reductions in executive and managerial pay of 20%, and

Whereas, during this time of austerity measures, layoffs, significant financial losses, and growing legal expenses, in 2018, Wayne LaPierre, as Executive Vice President and CEO of the NRA, received a significant pay increase and a four hundred and fifty five thousand dollar “bonus,” bringing his total compensation that year to more than 2.2 million dollars, up from the 1.4 million he received in 2017, and for 2019 and 2020, while the layoffs and pay cuts were being implemented, Mr. LaPierre received compensation of approximately 1.7 million dollars each year, and

Whereas, along with this generous compensation, Mr. LaPierre received numerous other perks, including chartered, corporate jet travel at an average cost of seven thousand dollars per hour, limousine service, luxury accommodations, and a substantial expense and entertainment account, all totaling well over an additional million dollars per year, and

Whereas the National Rifle Association’s positions and objectives are supposed to be based on certain unwavering principles, beginning with the fact that the right to arms is an unalienable, fundamental, individual right, bestowed by our creator, and enshrined in the Constitution, and that restrictions on inanimate objects can never control the behavior of persons with evil and criminal intent, and

Whereas Mr. LaPierre, in his capacity as Executive Vice President of the NRA, publicly declared in 1999 that the National Rifle Association believes in “absolutely gun free, zero tolerance, totally safe schools.  That means no guns in America’s schools, period, with the rare exception of law enforcement officers or trained security personnel,” and

Whereas, at other times, while serving as Executive Vice President of the NRA, Mr. LaPierre has declared the NRA’s support for the creation of an “Instant Background-Check System,” declared the NRA’s support for laws requiring background checks for all firearm sales at gun shows, declared NRA support for so-called “red flag” laws, which provide for the confiscation of firearms from people accused of being a threat to themselves or others, with only bare consideration of due process, and declared that “the NRA believes that… (bump-stocks) …should be more tightly regulated,” and

Whereas President Trump subsequently acted on that last statement of support from the NRA, resulting in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives declaring bump-stock devices to be “machine guns,” effectively banning them under the Hughes Amendment, and

Whereas, while serving as chief lobbyist for the NRA, when the Hughes Amendment was attached to the Firearm Owners Protection Act as a “poison pill,” Mr. LaPierre asked the Republican Senate to agree to the amendment in order to pass the law, and asked President Reagan to sign the law, and subsequently stated that repeal of the Hughes Amendment would be the NRA’s number one priority going forward, but has never taken any substantive action toward repealing this travesty of a law, and

Whereas Mr. LaPierre has testified in court and on tax documents that he improperly charged personal and other unauthorized travel on multiple flights on chartered jets, and other unauthorized expenses to his NRA account, and

Whereas the various disclosures, revelations, and numerous substantiated accusations that have come out about Mr. LaPierre in recent years, along with his lack of principled stands on critical rights issues, have damaged the reputation of the National Rifle Association and its members, and have destroyed Mr. LaPierre’s personal credibility, severely limiting his abilities as a fund raiser or a political influencer on behalf of the NRA and its members, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the members here gathered for the 152nd Meeting of Members of the National Rifle Association, here gathered in Indianapolis, Indiana on this 15th day of April, 2023, do hereby declare that we have No Confidence in the ability of Wayne LaPierre to lead this organization going forward, and while we appreciate his contributions to the fight for rights over the past 40 years, we call on him to resign his position as Executive Vice President and to not seek reelection to that, or any other leadership position in the NRA at any time in the future, and, be it further

Resolved, That we call on the NRA Board of Directors to recognize the will of the members and ensure that Mr. LaPierre is not reelected to the office of Executive Vice President, or elected or appointed to any other office of importance within the National Rifle Association or its affiliated organizations, nor be awarded any contract or employment by any NRA-related entity, and, be it further

 Resolved, That the Secretary is instructed to cause a full, legible copy of this Resolution to be printed in the Official Journal of the Association within 120 days of the close of this meeting.

UPDATE: I did record Jeff Knox and Rob Pincus speaking in favor of this resolution. Their videos are below. In the one with Rob, you will seek Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC) giving a loud defense of Wayne. While I like Mark, I find it incredibly sad that he had “drunk the Kool-Aid”.